one
Myworldissmall, dark, and filled with nothing resembling happiness.
That all vanished when my mother died eight years ago. My father had always been a drinker but when she wasn’t there to stop him anymore it became so much worse. When things didn’t go his way I was now the one he took it out on. It became so bad that I couldn’t hide the marks anymore, and instead of getting visits from social workers, we moved. He never let me go back to school and lied if people asked, telling them he was homeschooling me.
“Oh Cambrie, how are you today, darling?” Peggy, the head librarian, a sweet Beta asked as I entered the building.
The one bright spot in my life was the library. Father would be home all day since he was on his three days off from the warehouse, and he’d come home in a foul mood last night muttering about a shipment going wrong. Of course he took it out on me when he found out we didn’t have any beer in the fridge. Thankfully he remembered not to hit me in the face and settled for tossing me across the room followed by a few swift kicks. I didn’t want to spend today of all days holed up in my room waiting for him to remember I existed when he woke up hungover.
“Today is actually my birthday, so I figured what better place to spend it but here with you,” I answered, giving Peggy a bright smile as I tucked my wild blonde hair behind my ear.
Today I was turning sixteen, the age when your designation revealed itself. Everyone talked about how they knew what their children would be all along. Most of the time I’m sure they were right, most were kind of obvious to pick up on. Alphas were always confident, natural born leaders, drawing people to them left and right. It’s why they became politicians or other influential people. Then there were the Betas, the diligent workers who truly ran our world and made up most of the population. If we no longer had Betas nothing would ever get done and our society would be a fraction of what it was. The government in all their wisdom had already almost caused one designation—Omegas—to go extinct, and the world was still recovering from that.
Peggy clapped her hands together as she burst out of her chair. I couldn’t help but flinch at the sudden movement even though I knew Peggy would never hurt me. Years of abuse trained my mind and body to act first and process later… if ever.
“That’s so exciting!” Peggy gushed as she held herself back from giving me a hug. I’d never outright told her what was going on, but it didn’t take a private eye to figure it out. “We’ll have to do lunch together, my treat since you’re the birthday girl.”
Peggy and her co-worker Diane have looked after me like I was one of their own for the past five years I’ve lived here. They were the ones to talk me into getting my GED and helped if I got stuck. There was never any judgment, just patience as they guided me through the problems. My plan right now was to find a college that would take me far, far away from Father and his anger. I’d been trying to find a way to make some money but that was far more challenging being so young. Now that I was sixteen it opened up a lot more doors and gave me a glimmer of hope.
“Now, birthday girl, where are you hiding for the day?” Peggy asked, leaning against the front desk giving me plenty of space with her hands calmly at her sides.
The whole walk over I’d been trying to decide that very thing. Did I want to be productive and work on my GED stuff, or did I want to toss responsibility to the wind? “I’m going to spoil myself and go for fiction.”
“That a girl,” Peggy said with a wink. “I have your bean bag chair in the office, give me a moment and I’ll grab it.”
As I waited I slipped out of my patched up bomber jacket that was far too light for the chilly day but it had a beautifully stitched Japanese style dragon on the back. I’d found it in a clothing bin where people put clothes they don’t want anymore. It had a huge tear down the sleeve but I stitched it together with silver thread so it looked like it was supposed to be that way instead of hiding the flaw. I might need to forage for my clothes but I did my best to create my own style with what I found.
“Here you are darling, I’ll find you when it’s lunchtime, and we’ll go to that café you love down the street, hmm?” Peggy offered, handing me the giant bright teal bean bag chair.
Teal was my favorite color, and the chair was a gift from Peggy and Diane for Christmas a few months ago. Hugging the bulky ball of squishy beads I headed to the second level and wandered past the Young Adult area and went straight to the Adult Fiction section. It was here I could find a book about the way things had been in the past when packs were a normal way of life and full of love for each other, whether it was familial love or as a lover. A pack formed from a blend of men and women who fit together perfectly no matter their designation. It gave me hope that somewhere in the world that still existed, and one day I might stumble upon it for myself. I let out a huff of laughter. This was the real world. Nothing like that would ever happen for me. Not for the poor girl who lived with a father who one day might get mad enough to kill me by accident. That’s where books and daydreams come in.
“Oh, going for a re-read I see,” Peggy commented as she looked at the book I was reading. “That is one of my favorites too, that Cameron though,” she said, fanning herself, giving me a salacious grin. “I’m not even going to comment on the fact we told you not to read from this section until you’re older but I guess there isn’t really any harm in it now is there? Packs who think like those are so rare it’s best to believe they are only in fiction. Oh, listen to me getting all weepy on your birthday. Come on let’s get something to eat.”
The thing I loved most about Peggy was that she was a hopeless romantic. She was in her late fifties and never settled down or had kids. She always told me the kids of the library were who she was meant to look after. I quickly placed the book back in its spot and chuckled at the name of it I Think Knot. While a knot was something everyone wanted from an Alpha it also gave for a great amount of play on words for authors. Jogging to catch up to Peggy, I slipped on my jacket and we headed out.
The café was just down the street where they had the best soup and sandwiches in town, not to mention their baked goods. It was small, and many people did to-go orders or delivery to their work, making it fairly quiet. This helped me relax and enjoy my meal since I didn’t do so great around strangers.
While I tried my best to hide the aftereffects of living with an abusive father, being around a lot of people in a small space just wasn’t something I could do comfortably. It made me mad that even when he wasn’t around he controlled my life and how I did things. I let out a sigh when we walked in and there were only two other people in the place and the table in the back corner was empty.
We settled into our seats, and a waitress came over to take our order. “Hello ladies, what can I get for you?”
“I would love a turkey club with that yummy tomato soup,” Peggy ordered. “Oh and an iced tea.”
The waitress turned to me and Peggy gave me a warning look. She knew I hated feeling like a charity case but this was different in my brain, it was my birthday. “I’ll have a large bowl of cream of chicken and rice soup with a full roast beef sandwich, please. Water to drink would be fine.”
“Lovely, I’ll get this in and it should be out shortly,” our waitress chirped and headed back to the kitchen.
Peggy slowly reached out and patted my hand, that was resting on the table. “Bless you child for actually ordering what you wanted. You know I can’t stand how skinny you are.”
“You do so much for me already, and don’t think I don’t know that you pack far more than you can eat in your lunch just so you can share with me,” I pointed out, giving her a mock glare.
She had the grace to blush but refused to comment. The waitress returned shortly with our meals and I dug in, humming at how good the soup tasted. As we ate, we chatted about my GED progress, the latest books we’d read, and Peggy told me stories of her traveling days before she settled here.
“How is it that you have been all over the place, and you settled on Cheapstow of all towns?” I asked, bewildered.
Tilting her head in thought she let out a sigh. “I thought I’d found someone to spend the rest of my life with here. We dated a short while and he’d just asked me to move in with him but before that could happen he was shot trying to stop a man from kidnapping an Omega. Timothy had such a pure heart and was always looking out for others, the perfect white knight if there ever was one. After he died I couldn’t bring myself to leave, his family let me take over his apartment and that’s where I live to this day. It’s how I can stay connected to him even though he’s gone.”
In this dark world Peggy’s story wasn’t all that different from many I’d heard on the news or read about. This world was in shambles and no one was stepping up to do anything about it.